Episode 2: The Death of President Zachary Taylor — Cholera, Poison, or His Doctors?

On July 9, 1850, President Zachary Taylor died after only sixteen months in office. Almost immediately, rumors began to spread. Had the president been poisoned? Did his opposition to the expansion of slavery make him the victim of an assassination?

More than a century later, Taylor's body was exhumed and tested for arsenic. The results seemed to settle the question—but did they?

In this episode, we examine the evidence surrounding one of the most famous medical mysteries in American history. We explore what Taylor ate, the symptoms he developed, the treatments prescribed by his physicians, and the state of medical knowledge in 1850. Along the way, we ask a broader question: if a patient dies because of the standard medical care of the day, is that simply bad luck—or can medicine itself become the cause of death?

In this episode

• The final illness of President Zachary Taylor
• The political conspiracy theories surrounding his death
• Cholera morbus and nineteenth-century medicine
• Bloodletting, calomel, opium, blistering, and other common treatments
• The 1991 exhumation and arsenic testing
• Why the poison theory persists
• What modern medicine can—and cannot—tell us about Taylor's death

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